Assessment Center Activities: New Generation Interview!

Why Assessment Center Activities?

Interviews conducted by companies during the recruitment or career advancement phases have become traditional nowadays. Essentially, companies invite candidates for an interview to get to know them a little before making a final decision about them. After all, we have all attended this type of job interview at least once in our careers. However, a new concept has entered our lives, especially in the last 5 years. Yes, Assessment Center Activities which originates from America and Europe, has recently become a new generation method frequently used by banks and many corporate companies both in recruitment process and career advancement.

In line with that if we put ourselves in the shoes of a Human Resources specialist, thanks to these activities, we can have the opportunity to get to know the candidate better. In this way, the harmony between the target position and the candidate’s competencies emerges automatically. With this system, which includes applied studies such as role-playing, work prioritization, analysis and group exercise study, HR experts evaluate the candidate from many aspects and make a final decision. The aim of assessment center activities which are generally used for expert and inspector positions, is to increase the success rate of matching the target position with the most suitable candidate.

As you may appreciate, finding the suitable candidate and the success rate are not high in the written exam plus classical interview system. This increases recruitment costs and reduces employee loyalty. Naturally, if we evaluate the sum of these processes for a sector or country, it will have serious consequences in terms of labour productivity and therefore profitability.

What is Assessment Center Activities?

We will share with you the detailed observations and information of our team members who have previously participated in this application. Before that, we would like to point out that; the most well-known assessment center activities include group exercise (not panel interviews), role-playing, analysis, and work/email prioritization exercises. But before all of these, we need to talk about competency-based personality inventory application 🙂 Because in all the applications you enter, they evaluate you according to the personality inventory made as a multiple-choice test that you took the day before. That is, they will evaluate you according to the person you marked in the questions in the inventory and claimed to be.

To give a very simple example on the subject; for example, if you answer the questions in the personality inventory as if you are a very patient person, but then appear very impatient in the next day’s role play, an inconsistent result will occur. By the way, the link to the personality inventory test will usually be sent to your e-mail the day before the activities. Then the next day, you will participate in assessment center activities. It would be best for you to give the most natural answers while taking this test. So the main thing is that you mark the answers as “the person you are” rather than “the person you want to be”. The whole process starts at 09:30 in the morning and will end at 15:00.

Afterwards, there is usually a 20-minute break, and then the “feedback” phase begins which will last approximately 20-30 minutes. At this stage, you are given feedback about your behaviour in the applications you carried out during the day.

Group Exercise

Now, we would like to briefly talk about the assessment center activities practices. After all, you took the personality test that came to you the day before and now it’s time for the applications 🙂 Meanwhile, at least 1 day before the assessment activities day, you will receive information about the day’s program and which application will be performed at what time via e-mail. It should be kept in mind that this information is approximate and the hours may vary depending on the conditions.

Group exercise should not be confused with traditional panel or group interviews. In group work, you will be in a group of 4 or 6 people and you will first be given an information note explaining the situation. By the way, it should be noted that; unlike other assessment center activities, group work is usually done in a physical environment.  For example; a study is given where the 6 people participating in the application are regional sales managers of a company.

The information note they have includes the company’s sales data, features and other information in that region. People are given 15-20 minutes to read this information, and at the end of this period, they are asked to make joint decisions as a group to increase sales, which have fallen significantly this year. When the time is over, they are asked to talk among themselves for about 30-40 minutes about how they can increase sales. During this period, HR experts monitor them by keeping notes on the side-lines.

In this study:

– Your characteristics such as your tendency to teamwork,

– How active you are and express yourself without being overly passive but disturbing others,

-the new solution approaches you bring to problems and your attitudes in the community,

are important.

Role-Playing Activity

Here, your role-playing skills will gradually come to the fore 🙂 So, you are now a senior manager and you are expected to have a 15-20 minute meeting with a problematic employee, solve the problems and increase his performance. Of course, during this meeting, the employee may give you rude answers and behave strangely. Remember, in the personality inventory, you answered that you are a very patient person 🙂

In other words, if you do not show patience in the face of your employee’s strange behaviour,  you will lose point probably. You will understand that your management qualities and competencies are measured in these applications. So, when you actually get promoted to a managerial position in the future, you will definitely have employees with problems. Your approach to such problems is very important.

In this study:

– It is very important that you listen to your employee well.

– Start talking by asking him how he is doing when he enters the room. 

 – Make him feel that you value him as a person before the employee.

In fact, it would be correct to treat your employee in role play as you would want to be treated in a similar situation. In the role-playing, for example, you will be asked to have a phone conversation with your sales specialist about his decreased performance after the region changes. Before the employee enters the room, you will be given an information note on the subject and given 15-20 minutes to read it. Afterwards, the employee will enter your room.

We advise you to keep in mind that throughout the conversation, he will occasionally make excuses, talk about his/her problems, and sometimes distract from the topic. What is generally expected here is that the problematic employee will leave the room feeling motivated.

Work / Email Prioritization

Perhaps the most difficult of the assessment center activities is the practice of prioritizing work or e-mail. Because here you are asked to “prioritize” posts and squeeze a lot of work into a very limited time frame. In other words, there may not be enough time for all tasks and you are asked to squeeze the most important tasks into the right time period. Of course, you should read the information note which was given to you before carefully. Because it is stated in the information note that sometimes you can delegate some work. Again, you are given 30-40 minutes and an information note or e-mail is sent to you firstly.

You are expected to prioritize all tasks within the given time. Afterwards, the HR specialist enters the room or starts the zoom meeting and would like to hear from you which task you prioritized and why. Moreover, he will also intervene and ask counter questions while listening to you.

For example, let’s say you left work on Friday evening and went home, making plans for the new week. When you come to work on Monday morning, you encounter an e-mail from the finance director of your company over the weekend. In this e-mail, you found 4 additional different tasks to be done urgently on the Monday. Meanwhile, information about how many minutes each job will take and its nature will be included in the information note. Your director asks you to plan and carry out these 4 new jobs, ranking them according to their importance, in addition to the jobs you have previously arranged. Additionally, some traps may be thrown into this information and you should be prepared for this.

Important

In this concept, it is not recommended to delegate your presentations and training to senior management to others. Apart from this, you will be able to delegate work that you do not necessarily need to do, if it is written in the information note. Here, your competence in order of importance will be measured. For example, if you postpone a task given by the General Manager in order to help a colleague, it will be a problem probably for you 🙂

Analysis Study

Although the analysis study is not the most difficult of the assessment center activities, it may be the one that will take the longest. Because there is really a lot of information in the information note given to you in advance. You will be asked to make a final report or presentation in the light of this information. As the name suggests, the strength of your analysis ability will be decisive here. In this context, you need to draw general conclusions as much as possible without getting bogged down in details and present them in an appropriate manner.

You can use slides or paper during the presentation stage. As long as you manage to support your opinions with accurate data.

To give an example of the analysis study, the company for which you are the regional manager is planning to open a new sales office in the city. Your General Manager asks you to make a presentation including which of the two locations you would recommend opening the new sales office. In other words, it would be more appropriate to open this new office in the city or outside the city in your opinion. Of course, there is a lot of information, both numerical and verbal, about the location in the city and outside the city in the information note previously given to you on this subject.

What is expected from you is to analyse this information, determine the most appropriate location for you and prepare an analysis presentation by supporting your opinion with data. Here, you are given a preliminary preparation time approximately 45 minutes. This period also includes the time to read the information note. In other words, you are expected to think quickly and analyse quickly and make a good presentation in a relatively limited time.

Assess Activities Important Notes

Assessment center activities are a day-long and quite tiring process. This process, which starts with a personality inventory the day before, ends with the feedback phase the next day in the afternoon. These applications whose main purpose is to get to know you closely and test your compatibility with the target position, are the most used recruitment and promotion system of the modern age.

Now, let’s briefly summarize the important items within the scope of assessment center activities;

During the activities and personality tests, give or mark answers based on the person you are, not the person you want to be.

You should definitely have water, paper and a pen with you. When you talk so much, your throat will dry out sometimes. You will also take notes with paper and pencil and give answers by looking at these notes from time to time. Especially in analysis application, paper and pencil are indispensable.

If you are going to participate in assessment center activities via Zoom, be sure to test your camera, microphone and internet connection the day before. In line with that it will be beneficial for you to use a wired network rather than a wireless network.

If you are going to participate in the online assessment center activity, adjust and test the lighting and location of your environment the day before. In other words, stay away from environments that will prevent the other party from seeing you comfortably due to incorrect lighting.

As we mentioned before, maintain full discipline and concentration during feedback phase. Do not forget that the evaluation about you may be continuing at that stage.

Final Assessment Notes

Now it is time for final notes for you:

• Remember that your smiling face is important along with your tone of voice and diction. In other words, we suggest you consider whether your perspective would be positive in the face of a sullen candidate who constantly frowns.
• As we mentioned before, remember from time to time the answers you gave to the personality inventory test you took the day before and avoid showing behaviour that would contradict them. Remember, the other party has the results and there is some information about you. Please don’t contradict yourself 🙂